


Like Mother, Like Son, Like New

by jukeboxhound



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Allusions to Canon Warfare and Child Abuse, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25639441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jukeboxhound/pseuds/jukeboxhound
Summary: Sephiroth is seven years old, and this is what he knows about his mother: her name is Jenova, she was pale in the way that he is, and her hair was long.(For the prompt, “Sephiroth brushing his very very long hair and trying to untangle them.”)
Relationships: Sephiroth/Cloud Strife
Comments: 23
Kudos: 205
Collections: FF7 Fanworks Exchange '20





	Like Mother, Like Son, Like New

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Guikat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guikat/gifts).



> I hope you like it, Guikat. <3

Sephiroth listens to Gast talking on the phone in the other room while Hojo wraps a blood pressure cuff around his tiny arm.

“Why doesn’t he like to bring his daughter into the lab?” Sephiroth asks. He knows his father prefers him to be silent, but it’s either that or swing his legs from the edge of the steel lab table, and this is the lesser of Hojo’s irritations.

“Because he’s a poor scientist,” Hojo tells him. “Don’t move.”

Sephiroth holds very still until a machine beeps and Hojo starts unwrapping the cuff. “Then why does he remain with the company?”

“He has other uses. If nothing else, he’s provided us with another Ancient specimen to study.”

Sephiroth has met Gast’s daughter before. She’s very small, younger than Sephiroth himself by approximately five years, and can pronounce only a handful of words with any kind of proficiency. This includes Sephiroth’s own name, which comes out as something like, _Seffa!_ Hearing it makes Sephiroth’s chest feel funny. He’s not sure why, but he’s pretty sure it isn’t because of annoyance, at least.

Thinking of Aerith makes him think of Ifalna, whom he hasn’t seen in some time. “Doctor,” he starts, before pausing.

After a moment, Hojo looks up from his clipboard, but instead of telling Sephiroth to be quiet, he asks with a kind of scrutinizing curiosity, “What? Finish your sentence, boy.”

“Doctor, what did my mother look like?”

He’s expecting to hear an order to stop asking nonsensical questions. For whatever reason, today Hojo raises an eyebrow and says, “She had long hair. She was pale.”

 _Like me_ , Sephiroth thinks but doesn’t say, looking down at his arm. The skin is so fair that he doesn’t need to look closer to see the blue vines of his veins twisting through the flesh. The only other entities he's known who are pale as he is have been the occasional specimen; his father, of course, has a more common phenotype.

When he looks back up, there’s an unreadable expression on Hojo’s face as he says to Sephiroth, “Just like you.”

Sephiroth is seven years old, and this is what he knows about his mother: her name is Jenova, she was pale in the way that he is, and her hair was long. He wonders if she might have looked like Ifalna. He wouldn’t mind having a mother like Ifalna, he thinks. He likes the way that Aerith can throw her tiny, bottom-heavy body at her and Ifalna doesn’t say anything about endangering a priceless investment.

A few weeks pass and Hojo informs Sephiroth that his hair is to be cut back to its standard, approved length.

“No, thank you, Doctor,” Sephiroth replies, and braces himself for his punishment.

But Hojo doesn’t order any reprogramming after all. Instead he asks, “Why not?”

Sephiroth hesitates. He’s reluctant to explain, in case it prevents him from learning anything new about his mother again, but he knows that being caught out in a lie later on would be much worse, and remaining silent in the face of a direct question is not an option. “I wish to have long hair like my mother did.”

Hojo looks at Sephiroth the way he does when he’s peering through the window of an experiment pod and taking notes on his clipboard, and Sephiroth makes sure to stand straight and still with his arms carefully relaxed at his sides. Sephiroth is able to take five, carefully measured breaths before Hojo says, “Fine.”

Sephiroth is seven years old, which he knows is far too old to express his thoughts with volume or gratuitous physical movement, but he dares to allow himself a small smile. Hojo’s return smile isn’t anything like Gast’s and makes something in Sephiroth’s belly twist uncomfortably, but that’s okay. Sephiroth just appreciates that his father has determined that reprogramming isn’t necessary.

…

“Angeal, I can’t take this anymore. Look at him. _Look at him.”_

Sephiroth pretends he can’t see Angeal look up at Genesis from the letter he’s reading, follow Genesis’ pointed finger, and find Sephiroth sitting on a cot on the far side of the tent as he forces a comb through his hair. “What?”

“I hate you all and I’m going to leave you to die at the hands of peasants with wheelbarrows,” Genesis hisses.

Angeal snorts. “Wheelbarrows? Genesis, you grew up in farm country, you’re not fooling anyone with your fake city-slicker ignorance.”

“And yet I still know better than to _destroy myself_ with a comb like I’m trying to spare Wutaian assassins the effort.”

Angeal shakes his head and goes back the letter, which, as it was sent with some urgency by a squad commander on another front, takes precedence over Genesis’ insistence on histrionics. This is why Angeal is Sephiroth’s favorite. Sephiroth hears another few strands of hair snap under the force of the comb’s teeth and wonders if it echoes what remains of Genesis’ sanity.

“Sephiroth, for the love of the goddess, either shear it off to something approaching a rational length or _learn how to take care of it_.”

It’s been a long day. This area of Wutai is hot and sticky, the biome and terrain are unfamiliar outside of the stark font of textbooks, and Sephiroth has to put his signature on his share of black-enveloped letters for the families of the soldiers who died today once he works out whatever substance has crusted over a portion of his hair. This is why Sephiroth stops combing, straightens up, and snarls with as much anger as he’s ever allowed past his tongue, “This is a comb. This is hair. What the _fuck_ is there to _learn_.”

Satisfyingly, Genesis and Angeal both freeze. Angeal doesn’t try to intervene like he usually might, but he’s clearly forgotten about the letter in his hands.

“Think of it like a sword,” says Genesis after the awkward silence, a little calmer, which Sephiroth wants to find annoying because he’s not here to be _placated_. “A sword is going to be a sword and act like one even if you never clean or sharpen it. But if you don’t, it gets more difficult to use as it blunts and dents and rusts, and eventually it’s going to be useless. Hair also gets damaged and fragile and will break into an unsightly mess if you don’t care for it properly.”

Sephiroth doesn’t say anything.

Angeal asks Genesis, “How do you know? Your hair’s short.”

“Because first of all, short or not, _it’s still hair_ ,” says Genesis derisively. “Second, what else am I supposed to do when PR descends upon us like locusts at a feast for several hours at a time before deeming us palatable for the peasants? Stare silently at the poor stylists like Sephiroth? Time passes _much_ more quickly with conversation.”

Sephiroth silently disagrees. Angeal just looks amused under all the dried sweat and dirt. He is no longer Sephiroth's favorite _at all_.

“So with that established,” Genesis says with sudden briskness, clapping his hands together and turning back to Sephiroth, “and because I will Firaga someone in the face with great prejudice if I have to look at anything having to do with this damned war right now, let’s start by assuming that the length is non-negotiable and move into more practical strategizing. Not a word, Angeal – I _will_ have ten minutes to focus on something else or the rest of your night will be _extremely uncomfortable_.

“Now, Sephiroth, my dear, you’re treating your hair like the enemy outside these canvas walls and that makes everyone very sad, including your hair. May I show you another way?”

It’s the unusual politeness of the request – and the fact that it’s even a request at all, rather than a demand – that convinces Sephiroth to slowly hold out the comb like it’s a detonator. “You take something sharp anywhere near my hair – “

“You’ll use it to slit my throat, I’m sure,” Genesis finishes casually as he strips off his gloves, drops them on a folding table covered in a worn map, and takes the comb. “Thank you. I’m going to sit on the cot in front of you. I would appreciate it if you refrained from putting out my eye for doing so.”

Genesis moves closer into Sephiroth’s space and Sephiroth has to consciously remind himself not to tense, not to summon Masamune, this isn’t a Wutaian combatant (or farmer, or shop owner, or painter, or child, or too many other combatants who never fit the label in the first place). Genesis, for once in his life, doesn’t make any comments as he waits for Sephiroth to visibly relax, and then says, “The section of hair you’re struggling with, hand it to me.”

Reminding himself that he agreed to this, Sephiroth separates out a thick section of hair and pulls it forward over his shoulder so that Genesis can reach it.

“So, each hair strand has layers to it, and the stronger the layers, the greater the structural integrity. The godforsaken yanking you were doing will stretch and crack the strands, making them brittle and prone to breaking. Because your hair is so long, too, it’s harder for the natural oils of your scalp to reach the whole length, which means the ends are already going to be drier and more brittle.”

As he talks, Genesis wraps his hand around the lower portion of the hair, closer to the ends, and starts picking gently at the ends with the comb. “Start from the ends, like this. Use your fingers if there’s a particularly stubborn knot. Once you can get the comb through the ends, then you move higher up your hair’s length.”

Sephiroth watches Genesis pick at a knot with his fingers, use the comb, and switch back to his fingers when he encounters a new tiny rat’s nest. When he combs, the hand he has wrapped around the section of hair tightens so that Sephiroth can feel gentle tugs against his scalp but not the sharp pain of several yanked strands. Genesis is muttering, “Honestly, is basic self-sufficiency too much to ask, we can’t all rely on an army of hairdressers at any moment of the day,” but Sephiroth ignores him with the kind of practice that comes from a few years now of _constant_ practice. “Dear goddess, did you roll in glue somewhere on the battlefield?”

“At least it’s not blood,” Sephiroth points out, because that actually has happened. Genesis gets quiet for a while, still running the comb through Sephiroth’s hair for much longer than Sephiroth would’ve expected of him, moving up the length of the section until about halfway, and then simply says, “Hand me more.”

Instead of arguing, Sephiroth pulls another section over his shoulder. Sephiroth is seventeen years old and the gentle, rhythmic tugs against his scalp, the occasional whisper of paper from Angeal at the shitty camp table, the distant sounds of exhausted soldiers settling in for a restless night, all become the foundation of the kindest memory he’ll have for a very long time.

…

Sephiroth is just turned twenty-one. The scar on Zack’s face is still startlingly new and pink when he looks at Sephiroth’s long hair, whipping around in the wind on the top of a hill outside what remains of Modeoheim, and says inanely, “Doesn’t that get in the way?”

“Yes,” Sephiroth replies.

Another few minutes of silence pass before Zack says, “Is it a PR thing?”

Sephiroth turns his head slowly to look at him.

“Your hair,” Zack explains. “I mean, if you wanted to cut it, you would have already, which means either you want it or someone’s making you, and you just admitted how annoying it is. So do they make you keep it for, y’know, the aesthetic?”

“It is entirely possible,” Sephiroth says very pointedly, “to recognize that something with value is simultaneously _very annoying.”_

Instead of getting hurt or angry, Zack’s face – tired by things much deeper than several days of tracking Genesis copies in the wilderness – breaks open with a smile, and he laughs, and he puts a hand on Sephiroth’s shoulder with a friendly shake. It feels like a Quake spell down to Sephiroth’s toes and it makes the numbness recede a little with the painful twinge of raw nerves.

“Yeah, yeah, copy that, General, sir.”

…

Sephiroth has his knees pulled up to his chest so that Cloud has enough room to sit on the edge of the bathtub, trouser legs rolled up to his knees and bathwater slopping gently up his shins. The mild scratch of a plastic comb against his back as Cloud pulls it slowly through the full length of his hair is soothing, a grounding counterpart to the heat of the water and the quiet of the tiled bathroom at this rural, near-empty inn.

“You’re quiet,” Cloud murmurs. “In a different way than usual, I mean.”

Sephiroth’s noticed that Cloud, instead of asking uncomfortable questions, will sometimes just voice his observations aloud and allow someone to decide what they want to do with it. Sephiroth likes that. He hasn’t always been given the space to decide how he wants to fill it for himself.

“Today was the fourth lab in less than a year,” Sephiroth says softly. He has a cheek pressed against a kneecap, which muffles his words a little. “We don’t know how many more Hojo was able to hide before his death.”

“You worry about what else – or who else – we might find.”

“Yes.”

The repeating pattern of _pull, pause, pull_ in his hair is soothing the last frayed edges of the day’s emotions. They hadn’t found anything alive, let alone sentient, in this lab, thank the Planet and whatever gods watch over it. That hasn’t always been the case. Sephiroth lets an arm unwrap from around his legs and drift down to his side so he can rest his palm over one of Cloud’s feet, tucked close to the curve of Sephiroth’s ass on the tub’s floor.

“Try to tickle me and you won’t live long enough to regret it,” Cloud says with an audible smile in his tone.

Sephiroth’s tempted to make a comment about how death doesn’t seem to stick to him, but even he recognizes that it’s still too soon, this new dynamic between them still too fragile, to laugh about such things. “I will leave that duty up to the children,” he promises instead.

“Smart man.” Sephiroth feels a firmer tug on his hair before Cloud mutters, “Shit, it’s a good thing monster blood is water soluble. I always wondered why an active swordsman would keep it this long.”

Sephiroth thinks while he runs his fingers over Cloud’s foot, following the lines of strong tendons, firm enough so that he doesn’t accidentally tickle anything. The memories are so old by now, worn thin by time and hurt and madness, that looking at them shouldn't feel like trying to pull out a blade sunk six inches into his chest. It’s been over a year since his corpse – the original one – was recovered from the Nibel reactor once WRO had finally managed to drain it properly, and the last time he’d freely chosen to expose something under his skin, it’d been after many years of never quite fitting and had been followed by a glorious explosion of betrayal after betrayal.

But Cloud isn’t Hojo or ShinRa, Genesis or Angeal.

Enough time passes that Cloud probably isn’t expecting a response, but then Sephiroth says, “When I was a child, all I’d been told about my mother was that her name was Jenova, that she was as unusually pale as I am, and that she had long hair.”

Cloud pauses, but he doesn’t say anything and the combing eventually resumes. Enough of Sephiroth’s muscles have relaxed that he doesn’t bother stopping the slow forward slide of his body until his shins hit the warmed porcelain side of the tub.

Sephiroth suddenly laughs.

“What’s so funny?” Cloud asks softly.

“After…everything, it turns out that my mother did, indeed, have ridiculously long hair.”

He hears the clatter of the plastic comb being dropped onto the flat lip of the tub before Cloud’s arms slide forward over his shoulders and Cloud’s chest presses against his shoulderblades. Cloud’s face ends up smooshed into the curve of Sephiroth’s neck and shoulder.

“I could try finding a ribbon or something to see if we can wrap it up in a ponytail like hers,” Cloud mumbles into his skin.

Sephiroth reaches up with both hands to lightly curl his fingers around Cloud’s wrists, crossed in front of his chest. “No, thank you.” He's twenty-eight years old and he thinks he’s finally done chasing those particular ghosts. “But if you could braid it before bed so that you don’t try to breathe it in while sleeping again, I would appreciate it.”

Cloud’s silent laugh is a gentle rumble against his back.

**Author's Note:**

> [My tumblr.](https://jukeboxhound.tumblr.com/)


End file.
